Vibrational spectroscopy can provide unique structural and dynamic information on biological systems. Lipids, especially their hydrocarbon parts, are particularly amenable to vibrational analysis since the vibrational properties of simple hydrocarbon molecules are well understood. The type of information that can be obtained includes details on chain conformation, chain packing arrangements and rapid relaxation processes such as chain torsion-rotation. These properties are diagnostic of the phase of chain systems and the phase in turn is a determinant of the biological properties of lipid systems such as cell membranes. Our objective is to quantitatively understand the structural and dynamic features of the hydrocarbon chains as seen in vibrational spectra. We will take the infrared and Raman spectra of model hydrocarbon and lipid systems and will provide a theoretical analysis of their structure-dependent features. We will use a variety of systems; urea adducts, hydrocarbon crystals, and phospholipid bilayers and vesicles in order to study the specific vibrations, some of which will be isolated by deuterium substitution. A survey will be made of the infrared spectra of lipid-water systems as new spectrometers should make these studies useful in providing information complimentary to that obtained by Raman spectroscopy.